A few years ago I ran across this painting, _The Young Sabot Maker_ by Henry Owassa Turner, in an exhibition at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts. I spent a good half an hour studying it, weaving in and out of other people’s way, not just because I love Turner’s work (I do) but trying to suss out the tools and techniques of historical wooden shoe-making. Why? Well, because I am a nerd.
Cory Doctorow on self-sorting online communities: If this subject was political rather than practical, we’d call this process “radicalization,” and we’d call the outcome – you sorting yourself into a narrow niche interest, to the exclusion of others – “polarization.” But if we confine our examples to things like literature, TV shows, flowers, or glassware, this phenomenon is viewed as benign. No one accuses an algorithm of brainwashing you into being obsessed with hashibame tongue-and-groove corners.
Every day, more
Soprano notes, golden petals.
Snowmelt spring escapes
As blackbirds from a shaken tree.
Last night I had two separate dreams involving pie. The pie was incidental to both—just a prop, which could have been anything; the dreams otherwise had nothing in common, literally or metaphorically. Do I need to bake a pie? Should I write a cookbook titled MacGuffin of My Dreams?
Would anyone who is not a subscriber to Front Porch Republic’s Local Culture like to read the current issue, on work? They persist in sending me two copies, so one of them is yours if you want it.
One more carving from the big batch just finished — another that would be impossible without high-speed photography to give me a model. (8x16 inches, if you want the specs.) I titled it “Hello, I Must Be Going!” …because, well, how could I not?
I need a word that means “an article that consists of a valuable germ of an idea wrapped in a bad argument laden with falsehoods and/or exaggerations.” Not a con job, but a sloppy piece whose sloppiness will make it less likely that anyone pays attention to the valuable germ. Suggestions?
Portrait format and peripheral vision. (Yes, kids, that’s two long-form blog posts in one week! It’s like 2005 or something.)
As the last of the snow melts, I’ll re-post this poem from a few years ago, which may be somewhat more charming than its title indicates: “Cheap Sonnet No. 28F. In Which the Poet Observes a Child Behaving Disgustingly.”
“Note of Longing,” a carving based on a 1754 illuminated hymnal.
